CHAPTER 10

Health Scare

A voice within me is sobbing.

ANNE FRANK

TUESDAY AND I HARDLY EVER LEFT THE ROAD. DRIVING AND FLYING, sleeping in hotel rooms and short-stay apartments, keeping focused on our mission at hand—that was the life we had chosen. Our stops in New York City, where we supposedly lived, were short visits on our way to somewhere else. Both of us were spent, me more than Tuesday. But even Tuesday was ready to chill.

Where better than the breezy city of Naples on the sunny southwest coast of Florida?

We had friends in the area and some upcoming commitments—a couple of speeches, a handful of book signings, some veterans’ advocacy cases to follow up on—but this, I promised Tuesday, was going to be more vacation than work. Mostly, we came to relax, catch our breath, and recharge—and maybe sit for a while. My right leg was really bothering me. Walking and balancing had become a growing challenge. The pain rarely subsided. Nothing the doctors had suggested—braces, physical therapy, and a whole assortment of blood thinners, pain relievers, and other medications—seemed to do much good. By this point, I wasn’t just a vet with a service dog who’d mostly gotten on top of his PTSD. I was a vet with a service dog who’d mostly gotten on top of his PTSD and now could hardly go anywhere without a cane.

I was proud that, up to now, we hadn’t let any of this slow us down. We’d been keeping our breakneck schedule, hitting every region of the country, making real progress on the issues we cared about. I was also more than ready to turn it all off for a short while. As things turned out, a stress-free breather wasn’t exactly in the cards.

Just after we arrived in Naples and got settled in our short-term rental, I got a scare I was completely unprepared for. It made me forget my bum leg in about five seconds flat.

I felt a lump on Tuesday’s belly.

I had no idea what it was.

My knowledge and experience told me not to jump to conclusions. I jumped immediately.

Tuesday had cancer! That stuff’s lethal!

Then, I caught my breath. What good would panicking do?

Tuesday’s belly is normally as smooth and soft as a warm pat of butter, his nap all running in one direction, his golden coat beautifully groomed. But on this particular bright Florida morning, as I was brushing him, I felt something. I was certain it had never been there before. The lump was unmistakable.

“What’s this, Toopy?” I asked.

With Tuesday facing me, the bump was just behind his front left leg on his belly. Of course, it could be anything, although I had no clue what. Maybe it was just a bug bite. Or maybe something a little worse. Did he jab himself? Or maybe it was nothing at all. Was it just some unexplained swelling? Maybe it would be gone if I touched that same spot again.

I ran my hand through his fur, and nothing had changed. It wasn’t a cut or a bruise or a bone poking out of a socket. On closer inspection, I could tell it wasn’t some foreign object caught in his fur. It didn’t feel like a pimple or a cyst. It was definitely a mass, about the size of a pencil eraser. There was no squeezing it. It wasn’t coming to a head. It was something beneath the skin but not too deep. It felt different from anything I had ever felt on him.

I didn’t have any experience with lumps. I’d brushed and petted and rubbed Tuesday’s fur enough times over the years to know for sure that this was the first lump he’d ever had. That’s not to say my fingers hadn’t discovered a few other things when I groomed him. He’d had a couple of blisters and cysts and other random eruptions. But those were different. They’d always been visible, and I knew immediately what they were. I’d never discovered something underneath the skin. Even Max, my dog growing up, had had a couple of abscesses, but never any lumps.

Anyone who has ever been through a health scare with an animal knows the mad collision of feelings I felt and just how rattling such a discovery can be.

My first sustained thought after the knee-jerk cancer thought was: It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe there isn’t a lump there at all. Maybe it will be gone if we take a walk outside for a few minutes and come back in. We took the walk. We came back in. The lump was still lumpy, and it was still there.

My second thought was, Tuesday’s definitely going to die. It will be slow and painful and horrible, and I won’t be able to help him, and I will be totally lost without him, and my life will quickly descend into depression and chaos.

Thankfully, I shook that off in a hurry. Tuesday looked up at me with those piercing eyes of his, and I was able to get a grip on myself. He needed me. I had to get a grip on myself.

My third thought was to wait. I figured I’d keep an eye on the lump and give it some time and see if it went away. Tuesday seemed fine with that. He could tell I was anxious, but I don’t think he knew why. He didn’t seem weak or ill. At least the timing was good. We were off the road.

For two weeks, I tried not to think about the lump. That was easier said than done. I have to admit I did check it from time to time—make that constantly—trying to remember how it felt before and whether it felt any different now. I was pretty sure the lump wasn’t going down. In fact, although it made me nervous to admit, that damned lump was growing—from a pencil eraser to the size of a large pea to the circumference of a dime. Larger, higher, fatter. I couldn’t deny any of that.

We had waited long enough. “Okay,” I said to Tuesday, “we need to get this thing checked out.”

The good news, if you can call it that, is that a lump is a physical issue. There is an objective answer to the question, “What is this?” You may not like the answer, but with professional assistance, that answer can be found. And I aimed to find it, which would mean taking Tuesday to a full-service animal hospital where he could get examined and we could figure out what the hell we were dealing with. I needed to know. He needed to know. There was no other choice. This was a Sunday afternoon.

“We will go see a doctor in the morning,” I announced to Tuesday.

By then, I felt like I almost had a degree in canine lumpology. Sure, I’d been trying not to check every second, and I’d kept things as normal as I could. But the truth was, with so much downtime, I had spent many hours doing what I bet any panicked dog owner would do under the circumstances. I went on the Internet, pulled up Google, and typed in the words “lump” and “dog.” From WebMD, I learned the “classic signs” of cancer in dogs are very similar to those in people: “A lump or a bump, a wound that doesn’t heal, any kind of swelling, enlarged lymph nodes, a lameness or swelling in the bone, abnormal bleeding.”

I looked up from my computer screen and saw Tuesday studying my face. Did he know what I was researching? The last thing I wanted was for him to pick up on my growing concerns. I quickly turned back to my reading, deciding not to mention WebMD’s doomsday symptoms to Tuesday. But it did rattle me that “a lump” was the first sign on the list.

I found a study from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine called “Mortality in North American Dogs.” It did not make me feel better at all. Actually, I felt a little sick. The researchers had studied thousands of dog deaths, and here is what they found: “Young dogs (two years or younger) died most commonly of trauma, congenital disease, and infectious causes.” Got it. And for older dogs? “Older dogs, on the other hand, died overwhelmingly of cancer.”

Ugh!

I didn’t mention that study to Tuesday either, who had turned nine two months earlier. Clearly, nine was different than five, six, seven, and eight, let alone one or two. When a dog turns nine, it’s a wake-up call. Ten is right around the corner. You’re getting into double digits there. Definitely an “older dog.”

It didn’t get better. I saw another article that said that certain breeds—golden retrievers among them—have a disproportionately high incidence of cancer.

I also kept that one to myself.

It was already late on Sunday, but I didn’t want to put this off another moment. I called a couple of people whose judgment I trusted. One was Jeannie Bates, who lives in Naples and is the founding director of PAWS Assistance Dogs. Jeannie knows and loves dogs as much as anyone on earth—and recognizes how talented and precious they are. She has devoted her life to that cause. I didn’t have to explain to her how much Tuesday means to me—or how devastated I would be by losing him before his time.

“Listen,” I said to her, “I need a veterinarian. What’s the absolute best animal hospital in southwest Florida?”

I figure there had to be good ones nearby, Naples being a resort town—a fairly ritzy one at that. Wealthy people don’t love their dogs any more than poor people do—but they are often able to get higher-quality veterinary care. I didn’t care about the cost. I just wanted the best.

“Animal Oasis,” Jeannie said without hesitation.

She went on to tell me why this place was the best. For one thing, Dr. Lien d’Hespeel ran the place and was a truly excellent vet. Another was that the Animal Oasis Veterinary Hospital had better facilities, greater specialization, fancier equipment, and a better-trained staff than any other such places in and around Naples. “I trust them with the health of our service dogs in training,” Jeannie said. “They treat all the PAWS dogs.”

I couldn’t think of a better reference than that.

While preparing to speak at the American Animal Hospital Association conference, I had learned that there is a huge difference between an animal hospital and a veterinary clinic. It’s like the difference between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a street corner Doc-in-the-Box. There are doctors at both of them, but there’s a world’s worth of difference between the two. For Tuesday, I wanted the animal equivalent of big-league medicine.

So that night, I sent an email through the Animal Oasis website and also left a voice mail, dropping Jeannie’s name and asking for a callback as soon as possible. Monday morning, we were up early, eager to go. But when I hadn’t heard anything by 10:00 A.M., I got Jeannie back on the phone. This time, she called the animal hospital directly. A few minutes later, she sent me an email. “You have an appointment at noon. I would love to pick up you and Tuesday and go with you, if that is something you want.”

Now, that’s a friend! Given the purpose of our appointment, I sure needed one.

“Yes!” I emailed back.

Jeannie didn’t say much on the drive over in her white minivan. She left me to my thoughts and Tuesday with his. Her van was a classic dog-mobile. Two seats in front. The whole back section a rolling dog domain. There were dog scents everywhere. Tuesday snooped around, exploring the space. I was grateful for his diversions.

I was also cognizant that I was getting crazy anxious. That was the last thing I wanted Tuesday to sense. I did my best to control my impulses. Normally, I’d be open with him. For years, that was one of the things I most treasured and expected from our relationship. Soothing me in times of trouble is what Tuesday does best. But in this case, it was weird. I wasn’t worried about something else. I wasn’t affected by memories of the battlefield or some social issue that pissed me off. My anxiety was all about him. And it didn’t feel right to expect him to fix that.

When we arrived and the three of us went inside, I could see immediately why Jeannie liked the hospital. This was no chilly medical practice. Everything was modern, sunny, and bright with a Florida décor of pastels, pink and light-blue walls and some darker accent colors. The techs wore dark-blue scrubs. Everyone seemed to know Jeannie.

Without delay, one of the techs led us into an examining room and took some biographical information about Tuesday—his age, his shots, any long-standing health issues. Then she asked: “So what’s going on?”

“He has a lump on his belly,” I told her. “I noticed it about two weeks ago. I thought it might go away, but it’s only gotten larger.” Two weeks must have seemed like a long time to wait. But in my defense, I had spent that time boning up on worst-case scenarios. “I’m pretty sure it needs to be aspirated,” I said.

In all those articles I’d been reading on the Internet, everyone kept talking about aspirating lumps, jabbing the lump with a hollow needle and extracting some tissue to test. I had no doubt Tuesday’s lump should be aspirated.

She repeated back to me everything I had said in a way that made me confident she was listening carefully. “Lump on his belly… larger… aspirate.” In the military, we call that technique a “brief back.” I can tell you it’s a good technique for reassuring someone, even in civilian life.

She ran her hand over Tuesday’s belly, lingering just a moment on the spot I directed her to. Tuesday was totally cooperative, standing still when she asked him to, then wagging his tail, putting his head down in a very nice-to-meet-you way, giving off his usual friendly vibe. I was the one who was tense. Not Tuesday. He was still providing comfort to me.

“Can I take him into the back?” the tech asked.

I didn’t like the sound of that. A lot of veterinary personnel—heck, a lot of human doctors—like to separate the patients from their loved one, taking them to the back for testing or whatever it is. It was the old separate-to-conquer idea. The animal might start crying. Separation gives the medical professionals more control. It’s also a law enforcement tactic we employed when I was a military police officer. Separate the parties in any tense situation.

Luis does not play that game, certainly not with Tuesday.

Dogs are pack animals, and this one had been at my side constantly. Tuesday wouldn’t react well. Separation wasn’t familiar to him. It would be extremely atypical. Plus, there was no good reason that he should be alone at a time like this. There was no good reason for me to be left alone, either. More importantly, I told myself, there was no chance I would get in the way. My being there could only help the staff if any issue arose. I know him, and he knows me. Believe me, he would be 200 percent easier to deal with knowing that I was there. I’m not saying our bond is utterly unique or stronger than what other handlers have with their dogs. Then again, it might be and it sure feels that way to me.

But I didn’t say any of that to the tech. “I would prefer we stay together, and he be aspirated right here,” I said.

She didn’t argue. She didn’t discuss. She didn’t debate. “Okay” was all she said.

A couple of minutes later, the tech came into the examining room. Dr. d’Hespeel was with her this time. She was also very nice. She greeted Jeannie and me. But there was someone else in the room who needed to be introduced. “This is Tuesday,” I said. “He is my service dog. He’s a very happy boy and I love him very much,” I said making it clear that this guy meant everything to me. Remembering the questionable medical outlook for older dogs, I added: “He’s nine years old.”

Tuesday looked at Dr. d’Hespeel then back at me, prompting me with his eyes to go on. “We have something we’d like you to look at.”

Tuesday loves being introduced that way. It’s amazing. A few humans gathered in a room speaking to each other, but he somehow knows that he is part of the conversation.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, addressing Tuesday directly. Clearly, these were animal people. They spoke dog.

Just about then, I began to feel concern that I might be making Tuesday nervous. We’d been to vets before, lots of times. He doesn’t have a doggy version of white-coat syndrome. But with so many concerned faces in the room, this was different, and I think he knew it. “Oh, he’s okay,” I said, more for Tuesday’s benefit than the doctor’s with the same smile you’d hope would fool a wary child. Then, I added, “Really, he’s all right.”

As good as I am at reading his mind, I still didn’t know exactly what Tuesday thought about the lump. He understood, I knew, that it was some kind of issue. I’d been assessing it for two weeks and now others were, too. But I’m not sure he fully grasped what the issue was or what we were trying to answer or why I was so upset. Try as I did to hide it, I knew my highly intuitive dog was picking up on at least some of this. My best guess was that, to Tuesday, the lump was something less than a real distraction—like a mole would be for us. He knew it was there. He knew it was something. He knew I knew about it. But he’d never been to medical school, and I don’t think he connected the dots. That’s what the doctor was for.

Dr. d’Hespeel explained what she’d be doing and how I could help.

As I held a hand on Tuesday’s back, keeping him calm and still, the doctor reached around and probed the mass with a needle, extracting a small sample before she pulled the needle out. I held my breath, ready for a small yelp.

Tuesday hardly seemed to feel it.

Very gently, the doctor placed the sample on a glass microscope slide and, holding it carefully by the edges, excused herself. She and the tech headed back to the laboratory, leaving Jeannie, Tuesday, and me in the examining room.

If you’ve ever waited in a doctor’s office for results of any serious test, you know what this was like. It was one of the longest half hours of my life. That much time leads to a lot of soulful thinking, worrying, and imagining.

Why was this taking so long?

Was there a problem?

What were they seeing in their microscopes?

I didn’t say any of this. Jeannie didn’t bother to make small talk. Neither did I. Tuesday hung out, happily. I mostly just stared blankly at Tuesday, at the floor, at the ceiling, at the signs on the wall. I tried, every now and then, to smile for Jeannie and Tuesday’s sake. But my mind was reeling, I promise you that.

After a short eternity, Dr. d’Hespeel came back into the room.

I watched her for signs, but thankfully she didn’t make us wait a single extra second. “Well, it is not cancerous,” she said. “It’s just a benign mass of fatty tissue. I can see why it was so concerning. But it’s nothing to worry about.”

Whew!

I let out an enormous sigh of relief.

“Oh, that’s good!” Jeannie blurted out. She didn’t show it, but I think she’d been as nervous as I’d been. She jumped up and gave me a hug, sharing in my own relief and delight.

Tuesday, no slouch when it comes to detecting mood shifts, immediately sensed the black cloud dissipating and the sunny burst of brighter energy.

I pet him on his side, on his back, and on his head. He knew I was happy. I kept hugging him, telling how very much I love him.

Tuesday’s a sucker for warm attention, even when there’s no precise reason.

But this time, he knew it was something special.

His ears went back.

His tail was wagging vigorously.

His butt went down, and he dropped into a low wag. That low wag, for Tuesday, is a very tender gesture. Tender was exactly what I wanted to convey to him, and he was sending it back in my direction.

It was such a huge relief, hearing the news from the doctor. I swear, if I hadn’t wanted to get Tuesday out of that hospital as quickly as possible, I could have fallen into the corner of the examining room and gone to sleep. Yes, sleep. That’s a very military inclination, being so mentally and physically exhausted you just flop down wherever you happen to be and rest. It reminded me how on edge I was.

As long and agonizing as the wait had seemed, it was over. Really over. We thanked the doctor and the tech. I gave Tuesday one last hug, and we got out of there.

Walking out to Jeannie’s dog van, I was already thinking back on it all. This was an experience I had never quite been through before. Even though it turned out well, I hoped never to experience it again.

I’m not someone who’s ever thought a lot about death, mine or anyone else’s. Not when my father had heart problems and had a mechanical valve put in. Not when I was in combat with my guys and we faced danger every day. I really love my father. I really loved my guys. Dying was a possibility in both of those circumstances. But I hadn’t dwelled on either of those like I had with the prospect of losing Tuesday. Tuesday is a member of my family and more. He is my caretaker, my confidant, and my best friend. He is all of those things wrapped into one. He pulled me through stuff that no one ever had.

“We should go to Norman Love,” I announced. “We need to celebrate.”

“That’s a great idea,” Jeannie agreed.

Norman Love Confections is a Naples institution, a decadent coffee and dessert salon run by the former global pastry chef for Ritz-Carlton Hotels. Tuesday and I had been there only once before, and not only because I wanted to try everything on the menu. They also offer a small line of super-tasty baked doggie treats. Tuesday remembered and recognized the name immediately.

He was game.

The place was just as sin-sational as the last time we’d visited. Jeannie ordered a high-octane hot chocolate. I got myself a chocolate coffee. Tuesday could have had anything he wanted. He had a Puppuccino.

As Jeannie and I slumped into our chairs and Tuesday curled around my legs, I have to say I was still a little lost in my thoughts. I raised my cup and whispered a quiet hope that we would never go through anything like this again.